Phil & Ningning

Hi all. I haven't been posting for quite some time, but some of you remember us. We have been enjoying our marriage and life together. I have not forgotten who to ask about immigration matters. My lovely wife's green card will expire October 31, and we are to file I-751 after July 31. I understand these applications are taking up to a year to process. My question is, what do we do if she wants to leave the country in the interim? Phil

Yes. A dear member of our family. Stay in touch please Jany.

Congratulations to you and yours, Jim. We'll look forward to meeting them in the not-so-distant future! B)

The "agents" around the consulate are generally considered a rip-off. No one can make the process faster. I am not talking about the legitimate immigration attorneys. They do provide a service of a certain value for a fee, however even they are not able to speed things up. If they tell you they can, it is best to move along. My general belief is that it is best to talk to no one in the immediate area around the consulate. If they have your name, maybe they have too much.

Hope y'all don't mind, my son will be along most of the weekend. He's six, and learning to speak Mandarin faster than me!

OK. I've been doing some looking around. The arboretum is not actually in San Gabriel. It's in the city of Arcadia, just a few miles north of San Gabriel. The address is 301 N Baldwin Ave. It should be a great place to meet up Saturday morning. Here is the website.

Congratulations on success! CFL has for all of us been a great source of support and an entertaining distraction as well.

Great idea!

We're always around. I think dim sum on Sunday morning would be super! A nice breakfast before the out-of-towners head north. I just recieved a message from pkroger (Chino Hills) and he said they would probably be attending the gala.

That'd be my guess. Hell, Armageddon may happen before the get together if it takes as long to put together as the last get together took to get put together(say that fast nine times). I was going to come to the last one but my visa expired before ya'll had it finalized! 194383[/snapback] For a new visa you will be required to submit a vaccination supplement. Simply for our protection, of course. Hell I bet if you come, Don might even show up. We could reserve the honeymoon suite for you.

I can't say anything about the tax return issues, but the other items (your apartment, your child etc.) show ties to EACH OTHER, and that usually seems to be the main focus of the interview. The general rule of thumb here is don't leave anything out. Give them all that you have.

One of the items we submitted was the boarding passes from a round trip flight from CAN to NNG. These proved that we actually sat next in adjacent seats on these flights. Plenty of family pics including yourself is always a good idea.

Congratulations you guys. Now we know Joanna can get back to Santa Ana from San Gabriel next month. Wouldn't want to get held up at the border.

I found out this stuff is definitely not some Chinese herbal remedy. I wouldn't worry about that. What it is, is some prescription blood pressure medication and what is basically Flonase without the brand name. I don't like it. She is dissapointed because she already told the man she would do it. I say it's not worth the risk just soo they can save a few bucks.

My wife will be returning from China next week. She has a couple of friends here in the USA that want her to bring back some medications for them. I am not sure what kind of medicines she is talking about, but she has agreed to do it. I told her before it was not a good idea, and now I am fairly certain of it. Any input?

Sure thing, Don. Do me a favor, will ya? Next time you invite us all up for a BBQ, try to make it a low-rain month, ok? We're in for the 25th.

Wow. Incredible. Almost scary.

Welcome to CFL Patrick. I am sure with the collective experience and knowledge here (spelling errors notwithstanding) that Feng's denial can be overcome. I hope the "consultant" didn't do too much damage. Stick around. We're here for you.

We live in a city of about 140000 people. When my wife arrived here she could not believe the lack of people walking on the street. She would ask, "How do the businesses stay open? Where are the customers?". It took a couple of months before she realized that the people are there, just driving cars instead of walking and hauling chickens on bicycle-trucks. A month or so after her arrival, she started ESL class. She began to make some friends quickly. A few months later, and she was practically teaching the ESL class. Seriously, the teacher speaks primarily Spanish, and often asks Jiening to clarify if she's not sure of usage or grammar. Eventually, she began doing volunteer work, tutoring English at the local library. She never did like large crowds, and she says she is very comfortable here. Sometimes I can tell she really misses China.

My wife expressed a similar experience. She began studying English in middle school, and tells me that generally all the middle schools have this practice. As Stone said, many Chinese can read and write some English, but few have conversational skills.

Merry Christmas, Jim & Jennifer. Phil & Ningning :candle:

K1's and K3's are treated as immigrant visas. 172700[/snapback] Is it also the law that you treat the non-immigrating visas as immigrant visas? or is this a way to rewrite the law in the interest of protecting us from the red menace?? 172707[/snapback] You know, I am very curious about this aspect of the K1 visa. It was confusing to me that a non-immigrant visa is treated as an immigrant visa. I understand the need for this but it seems to be a contradiction in terminology and usage. Is it the law that a non-immigrant visa is treated as an immigrant visa? Where is the line drawn? What is the cutoff point in the process when a K1 visa applicant becomes an immigrant?

I doubt anyone will disagree.

Making this simple is what I want to do. I care about not having problems down the road and I could not care any less if it is more complicated for the DMV or anyone else. Furthermore, the things that Frank, Carl, and others are doing is what is best in their own circumstances but may not be best for everybody. If all our cases were exactly the same and approached in the same way by all of us, then maybe you would have a valid point. I have decided the best way to approach this minor bump is to go to another DMV in a nearby city that has a very large Chinese population and ask them to let her re-sign there. The worst case scenario I can foresee is having to pay another application fee, but even that would be a small price to fix what I percieve as a very long-lasting thorn in our side.

When Jiening went to the DMV for her drivers license application, I had to work so my mother graciousy offered to take her down for me. She passed the test alright, but the highly skilled attendant spotted an obvious problem. Um, it seems (according to this employee) that the little machine that records signatures doesn't recognize Chinese characters. I don't really believe that the machine can tell a difference. It's purpose is to record and reproduce whatever is scribbled on it. In my best guess, this person was looking for some letter she could recognize and there were none. The DMV "specialist" instructed my wife to sign her name in the English alphabet and she complied. Jiening told me a few days ago of this. Immediately I began seeing all sorts of problems. Every piece of paper she has signed for immigration has been in Chinese with no problems. Her signature is in Chinese, and that's all there is to it. Even on our joint checking account her signature is in Chinese. If she were to sign a check in English the bank would surely reject it. At biometrics she signed in Chinese. The fact is that the "signature" she gave the DMV is not her signature and bears no resemblance to the real thing. This is an identification issue, and now when she recieves her drivers license it won't reflect the same signature the US government has on file. Who knows what other problems this could cause in the future? What should I do to correct this? I am thinking of having her write a statement that her signature is in Chinese, having it notarized, presenting it to the DMV with her passport and green card, and requesting that she be allowed to re-sign the machine. Is there a rule or regulation in CA that says a person's signature must be in English? My signature is in English, but I don't think any DMV employee could read it without looking at my printed name first. It's just a mark I make, unique to me. That's all her signature is, a mark she makes that is unique to her.